Telegrams Live!

An Australian company, Telegram Stop is bringing back the telegram. For $4.70, you can send a telegram to anyone in the world. This service is great for the same reason we write letters - you make more impact with something real and tangible.

Japan v. South Korea B-Boying

I think I screamed "oh snaps!" and "whaaaaat!" at least 6 times while watching this video. It's an all star team of b-boys from Japan versus the Gamblerz. The Gamblerz might sound familiar, they were the world champion b-boy team in 2006 (I think). They were one of the storylines in Benson Lee's "Planet B-Boy." The funniest line in that documentary was someone from the French team scoffing "I hope the judges don't fall for their amazing bullshit" after watching their performance.

B-Boying actually has a lot of followers in Asia - most notably in Japan and South Korea. They have competitions in China as well, but I think the consensus is that they aren't as technically proficient as the guys in Japan and South Korea. If you watch "Planet B-Boy" you'll see that it's not that each country developed a style, but it's more about each person making it their own. It's a very powerful observation because when we see a video clip of guys doing head spins, that's what it looks like. But to have that context and understanding of the person makes every move so much more meaningful and exciting. In that documentary there's a moment when they do a slow-mo of the Japanese team's battle. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Anyone Can Animate Movies Now

Kind of. One of the guys at work introduced me to Xtranormal, a website that allows people to easily create animated movie clips. All you have to do is type in your script, dress up the characters, add emotions/movements (choices are limited), fiddle with the cameras a little (if you want) and you're done. Click here to see my first movie (the embed code doesn't work for some reason).

This is one of the powers of cloud computing. Animation takes a lot of processing power, so you need a fairly robust computer to do it. I created this with a tiny little Macbook that can run a little more than a handful of programs at the same time properly. The trick is that the website's servers does all the processing and rendering for you. This makes these sorts of applications available to more people in general and it's more efficient in terms of costs too. I don't have to buy a massively powerful computer to do something like this.

MV in One Take

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.

Check out Nyle's music video done in one take. It's nicely executed, but a great song as well. My favorite lines because they are so optimistic, yet realistic:

I won't be stressin’ this recession if it leads to a depression
It won’t be in my mind, I'll be fine as long as I can survive off the beat and rhyming?
Then I don’t mind surviving off eatin’ no ramen
Cause where I’m standing, right now, this is the best time to be grinding
Cause ain’t nobody signing, so ain’t nobody shinin’
No more dreams are going down and spitting that fly talk
Dudes talkin' street when they barely sidewalk

Mixed Reality

Noteboek from Evelien Lohbeck on Vimeo.

Just a video from a student's graduation portfolio. She plays a couple of visual tricks on us that's pretty fun to watch.

Nerdy Urban Farming

We Make Money Not Art hjavascript:void(0)as a great look at re:farm an urban farming initiative with a technology twist. The premise is that everyday people (city dwellers especially) have lost a lot of farming knowledge over the last century and we need some help if we are to grow sustainable, bountiful gardens in urban settings.

To fix that these guys create open source hardware and software to help manage an urban garden. That way, anyone can do it well. Right now the hardware is a watering system built from an old water pump and some tubing. The software is supposed to tell you what fruits are in season, what local varieties are available, what dishes it's used in, etc.

A more high tech version of this was started in Japan when they converted a basement vault in a bank building into a farm where everything from temperature to artificial light was controlled by a computer.

But the advantage of re:farm's work is that it's much, much cheaper to implement. It's also interesting to think that in the past we've used technology to beat or outwit nature into higher yields. Now we're using technology to be much more complimentary with nature.

New School Soul

Just stumbled upon Mayer Hawthorne who has this refreshing old school soul and jazz sound with a little of pop mixed in there.

Despite not having a record out yet, he's been featured on BBC radio and is starting a multi city tour in May. There is something very clean and honest about his music and it might have something to do with the retro vibes that comes from it. More info about him here.